The Yogi Adityanath government, in its second term, will focus on the promotion of sports in Uttar Pradesh.

A fund of Rs 500 crore will be earmarked for promoting sports activities.

According to a state government spokesman, on the lines of a national talent search scheme, Uttar Pradesh will also start scouting sports talent across Uttar Pradesh.

Special focus will be on nurturing female sports talent.

All set to launch “state sports talent search and development scheme”‘, the government will provide a financial assistance of up to Rs 5 lakhs under it.

Over the past five years, the state government has made significant contributions in promoting sports and has been able to foster sports culture.

“Our objective is to enable the players to perform and shine on international platforms,” said the spokesman.

He said that the best practices of the central government will be incorporated in a gradual manner in Uttar Pradesh and focus will be on inclusiveness of women in sports.

Sharing the details of the work done to encourage higher participation of women players, sports officials said that just before pandemic, in 2019, a total of 522 sports training camps were organised in the state out of which 109 were dedicated only for training women participants.

Augmenting the sports infrastructure further, the directorate created 44 hostels for providing training in 16 different sports across 19 districts.

Moreover, the 18 players who bagged medals in the Commonwealth Games were given cash reward amounting to about Rs 2.60 crore.

Similarly, Asian Games medal holders received cash rewards up to Rs 3.90 crore.

Realising the importance of setting up standard size sports stadiums, more than three dozen stadiums were built in the state under the Khelo India scheme.

Sports infrastructure was being readied in rural parts of the state. During one such state sponsored campaign (khoob khelo, khoob padho pakhwada), the amount given for procuring sports kits was increased from Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,500.

The first sports university was established in Uttar Pradesh in January last year in Meerut and was named after the legendary hockey player Major Dhyan Chand with a budget of Rs 700 crore.

The university will have graduate, post graduate, diploma and sports management courses.